


Roadside Shrines

by Fintan



Category: Sterek - Fandom, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Argentina, Chile - Freeform, F/M, M/M, Patagonia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-17 04:09:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2296073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fintan/pseuds/Fintan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek couldn’t be sure Stiles had heard him enter, which gave him a private moment to consider Stiles’ body. He was rail thin and his musculature wasn’t so much cut as etched.  He no longer had the body of a gangly boy. The boy was gone. In the dim light he looked carved like a piece of scrimshaw.  He was ivory whittled meticulously into the shape of a man, all bone and long lines.  </p><p>Derek thought nothing so ruined should look so beautiful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roadside Shrines

**Author's Note:**

> Some love stories are written in stone.

Dia was a terrible liar, or, as her mother tried to explain, a wonderfully imaginative storyteller.  This distinction, however, was lost on Sister Francis, the principal of Escuela Primaria de San Roque. 

 

“You must tell the truth always,” Sister Francis firmly stated.  “ _Siempre hay que decir la verdad.”_

“Which one?” mumbled Dia?

 

“ _No es tan facil.”_ “It’s not so easy,”Dia’s mother translated for her.

 

“That’s not what she said,” Dia’s father grumbled.

 

Sister Francis was not unsympathetic. “I understand that it is difficult for a nine year old child to move so far from home.  It is strange for you.  But many children have come to Argentina from _Los Estados Unidos_ and they have adjusted. You will, too.  And this is your mother’s home country, so it is in part your home, too, Dia. Try to fit in. You do not impress the other girls when you tell your strange stories.”

 

 _“Ella tiene una gran imaginación,”_ Dia’s mother replied.

 

Dia’s father glanced at his watch and sighed. He was more than a little exasperated with his wife’s indulgence of their daughter’s behavior and really needed to get back to work.

 

“Dia, when will you learn? A thing is true or it is not. I don’t want to hurt your feeling, but your stories are weird, twisted and bizarre.”

 

“Imagination is not to be encouraged,” agreed Sister Francis.  “We are not fanciful in this country.”

 

“Oh,” replied Dia’s mother.  “Do Pablo Neruda and Jose Luis Borges know about this? Someone should correct them.”

 

Dia couldn’t stop the grin spreading across her face. She bumped her knee against her mother’s. 

 

Sister Francis bristled.  “If you do not like this school…”

 

“ _Esculpame,”_ Dia’s mother said quickly.  _“Perdon._ It has been a difficult adjustment, but I will help Dia understand. Thank you for meeting with us.”

 

The father offered to drive his wife and daughter back home, but the mother declined.  “It’s a nice afternoon for a walk.  You go back to work.  We’ll see at dinner.”

 

On the way home through the dirt streets of San Roque, Dia held her mother’s hand as they walked in silence until she looked up to meet her mother’s eyes.

 

“? _Que, hija?_ What is it?”

 

“Neruda – Borges - ?”

 

Dia’s mother smiled.  “Writers, writers of wonderful stories and poetry. What do you know about “ _realismo mágico”?”_

Dia thought for a long, hard moment. “Mama, ever since we got to Argentina, I feel like I’m living in it.”

 

Her mother laughed with delight. “If you know where to look. There is much magic in the world, but, no, not everyone can see it.”

 

The little girl nodded solemnly. “The ones who can’t get so angry.”

 

“Then maybe we should just only talk to each other about that, yes?  Because we know.” She gave Dia’s hand a little squeeze and then traced the light moles on her daughter’s pale face with her fingertips and marveled at her honey brown eyes. Dia looked so much like her father.

 

Smart little girls know when there is a bargain to be made. “If I agree to only share my stories with you,” Dia asked, “will you read Borges and Neruda to me?”

 

The mother pretended to consider this proposal before agreeing. “Starting at bed time tonight.”

 

Both women, mother and child, walking home in the knowledge that they had made an excellent bargain.

 

 

Dia knew with weary certainty that the other schoolgirls were never going to be her friends.  They teased her for the wide-brimmed hat and long-sleeved blouses she had to wear to avoid sunburn.  The sun was fierce in the high mountains and Dia’s skin burned easily. The girls had no use for Dia’s stories. They called her “ _la extraña,”_ the strange one. 

 

Fine by me, thought Dia.  I don’t need friends anyway. 

 

After school she would walk the roads that branched off from the highway and twisted up through the mountains. On such a road she made her greatest discovery.  It looked like a … dollhouse?  It was decorated by wind-torn banners and ribbons, which were red. Inside the dollhouse was small figurine of a man dressed like a gaucho with a red cape.  He had a florid moustache and long hair.  All around the figurine was garbage: empty beer bottles, cigarette packages, and candy bar wrappers. Dia could make no sense of it, which only intrigued her more.

 

At bedtime Dia confessed to her mother her exploration.

 

“Always so curious,” said her mother who made no attempt to disguise the approval in her voice.

 

Dia shrugged.  “But what is it?”

 

“A wonderful story. It’s a shrine to a man we call Gaucho Gil. In Argentina we consider him our Robin Hood. He stole from the rich and gave to the poor and the authorities hanged him for his troubles. But he promised to keep helping us, even after death, and many believe he has so people bring him their hopes and fears and maybe a small gift to get his attention.”

 

“But there are no actual candy bars, just the wrappers.”

 

“That is not so smart.  Those would be left by the schoolchildren who have a test, but did not study.  By definition, children who do not study can not be very smart.”

 

Dia solemnly considered her mother’s words. “Maybe instead of a story tonight,” she suggested, “we should take one more look at my math homework?”

 

“See how smart you are?” said Dia’s mother.

 

 

Dia began to find roadside shrines everywhere. Some were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, but many were not. Difunta Correa, Miguel Ángel Gaitán, Pedrito Hallado, and Eva Perón all had shrines but by far Gaucho Gil was the most popular. On a rarely used, deeply rutted road one of his shrines looked sad from neglect and Dia made it her job to make clean it properly.

 

One day after school Dia went to visit the shrine and was startled to find another visitor already there.  It was a small fox that was nosing into the shrine. She watched him from the protection of some bushes across the road.  The fox too seemed disappointed that the candy bar wrappers were empty, but he licked all the same. Then he tucked himself into a bit of shade created by the shrine and settled into a nap.

 

Across the road Dia also rested in the shade while she considered the fox.  His color was unusual.  Most foxes in northern Argentina were grey, but this one was reddish or at least he seemed so in the late afternoon light.  Red was Gaucho Gil’s color, so maybe this was a good sign? For a few moments, Dia was lost in her thoughts. When she glanced again, the fox was gone.

 

All the next day at school, Dia wondered if he’d be at the shrine again, but when she finally got there he was nowhere in sight. Dia was surprised by how disappointed she felt.  Wait. Was that a sound from the bushes?

 

Dia sat down carefully and pulled the remainder of an uneaten sandwich out of her book bag.  She tore off a big of bread and tossed it toward the bush. The fox’s snout emerged first. He sniffed at the bread and then quickly consumed it and darted back into the brush. Dia tossed several more pieces toward him and each found a home. Finally the fox sat and watched her eagerly, but she had nothing left to share.

 

“ _Lo siento, el zorro, pero no tengo más,”_ said Dia.  No more. The fox snorted and disappeared into the brush. But they had a game now and maybe Dia had found a kind of friend.

 

If only we could keep our friends safe. If only foxes had the sense to keep out of the way of cars on twisty roads.

 

 

The mother heard her daughter’s terrible sobs. She ran for Dia and listened to her attempt at words.  A neighbor loaned them her car and they raced across town toward the shrine.  The fox lay beside it, panting.  His left forepaw was mangled and blood stained smeared his snout.

 

There was no veterinarian in the town, but there was a kind-hearted doctor.  She devised a splint and treated him for infections, but the fox was very weak. He told Dia she would need to be strong. Dia hated the way adults said one thing when they meant something else. But the real difficulty was still to come.

 

“We’re not having an animal inside the house,” Dia’s father said.  “It could have fleas and rabies. It could be infected and it could bite you.  No.”

 

The pleadings were as endless as Dia’s tears. The compromise was that Dia could make a bed for the fox in the garden shed.  “But you sleep in your own bed,” insisted the father.  Everyone in the room recognized the lie, but out of politeness they all agreed to it.

 

Three weeks passed before the splint could be safely removed.  The fox had tired of it after a week, but Dia spoke to him firmly.  He huffed, but stopped gnawing at it, at least while she was watching. He would hobble after Dia as they played in the backyard.  They made a game of hide and seek that the fox always won.  Dia knew he would always win, but she didn’t mind.  Sometimes it is important to let your friends win.

 

The doctor removed the splint, pronounced the fox good as new, and asked Dia where she would release him.  The question didn’t surprise her.  Smart girls know the right thing to do even when it was hard, although that doesn’t make doing it any easier.

 

The mother had no sooner stopped the car then the fox wiggled out of Dia’s arms and leapt out the car window to the ground. He ran circles around the shrine and then stopped to sniff at everything.  Something must have smelled fascinating in the bushes because the fox dove into them. He didn’t come back.

 

Dia waited until her mother wrapped her arms around her and said, “Senor Zorro is a _cosa salvaje_ , a wild thing.  You can’t expect a wild thing to behave in the ways of people. They cannot to that. If you must love a wild thing, you must love it in its wildness or it would be better not to love it at all.”

 

“Are you talking about Dad?” Dia asked suspiciously.

 

The mother laughed.  “Have you been reading Neruda without me?”

 

Dia pressed her face into her mother’s neck for comfort.  “ _Tal vez_.” Maybe.

 

Dia lost herself in her mother’s embrace. “We must go, Dia, but first we could leave a small gift for Gaucho Gil for bringing Senor Zorro back to health.” The mother reached into her purse and pulled out some bread wrapped in a napkin. It was the same bread that Dia have been feeding the fox for weeks. 

 

“I love you so much,” Dia whispered in her mother’s ear. 

 

She placed the bread in the shrine with maybe just a little sticking out in case some small animal was hungry. Dia was certain that Gaucho Gil would share.

 

 

After school the next day Dia approached the shrine carefully.  Senor Zorro was nowhere in sight.  Dia sighed and sat in shade of the shrine.  She reached into her book bag and pulled out a hunk of bread.  She held it in the air and wafted it around a bit. 

 

“Sure is good bread.”

 

The fox poked his head through the bushes and then raced up to Dia.  He even had the good grace to rub himself against her legs for several moments before trying to bite the bread. 

 

“Slowly,” said Dia.  “It’s better for digestion.” 

 

The little fox huffed, but waited patiently as Dia broke off pieces and tossed them to him. When the meal was finished, Senor Zorro turned and trotted back to the bushes.

 

Dia sighed, not really surprised. “ _Hasta luego, Senor Zorro_.”

 

The fox stopped, turned back to her, and huffed again. He had the most expressive huffs, which Dia realized she could translate.  This one, for instance, said, “C’mon already.  I don’t have all day.”

 

Once you become aware of them, fox trails are a treasure map of mischief.  There wasn’t a chicken pen or a barrel of feed to which Senor Zorro couldn’t find a trail. He also knew all the narrow twisty trails through the hills that lead to some of the most wonderful views of the countryside.  When the afternoon deepened toward dusk, Dia became concerned.

 

“It’s close to dark and I don’t know where I am.”

 

Senor Zorro huffed.

 

 _“? Verdad?_ ” said Dia.  The fox pointed his muzzle toward a tree with a shed nearby.  It was Dia’s backyard.

 

“ _Muchas gracias, Senor Zorro_ ,” Dia exclaimed.  “? _Te veo manana_?”

 

Senor Zorro huffed again.

 

“Don’t worry,” grumped Dia.  “I won’t forget the bread.”

 

 

She fed him bread; he took her walking. It was an excellent arrangement, but like most commerce, not without risk.  Many years later when Dia told her own son about this adventure, she called it, “Senor Zorro and El Guapo: The Fox and the Wolf.”

 

He was magnificent.  His hair was jet black with light gray insets inside his ears and on his chest. Stretched out on a warm rock, he appeared to be asleep, but Senor Zorro watched the wolf’s nose twitch and knew better.  He tugged on Zia’s stockings to keep her for getting closer. After a few moments the wolf stretched leisurely, then stood at full height and began to saunter away.

 

“Guapo,” murmured Dia. Handsome. An expression crossed the wolf’s face that looked remarkably like a smirk, and then he leapt off the boulder and out of sight.  Senor Zorro huffed in indignation, but his eyes glittered as he peered after the wolf.

From that day forward their walks always had an unspoken purpose: find El Guapo.  Many days they did.  To the unsuspecting eye it would appear that he was resting in the sun, but Dia could see he was alert to every movement in the brush.  He had to know they were watching him; he in turn was watching them.

 

Perhaps the wolf’s wariness was necessary. Dia occasionally saw wounds on his body. Once his snout look bloodied as if bitten in a vicious fight with another animal, but the wounds seemed to heal quickly. Still, it was a reminder that they lived in a dangerous world, not that such knowledge ever intimidated Senor Zorro.

 

One afternoon Dia and Zorro were watching the wolf sun himself on a rock.  Dia absently picked at the bread from her lunch, one piece for her, one piece for Zorro. Suddenly Zorro locked his teeth on the remaining bread and yanked it out of Dia hand. 

 

“Greedy fox,” scolded Dia.  He danced away from her with the bread held firmly in his mouth and began to trot toward the wolf.  He made no attempt to hide from the wolf’s sight.  He wanted the wolf to see him and indeed the wolf watched him with unblinking eyes. 

 

Zorro stopped about twenty feet from the wolf and sat down.  After a few moments Senor Zorro dropped the bread on the ground and then nosed it toward the wolf. The wolf looked at the fox skeptically. Senor Zorro turned and trotted several feet away before he sat down again.  After careful consideration, El Guapo the Wolf walked over to the bread and sniffed it carefully. He huffed at it, then turned and disdainfully walked away.

 

The expression on the fox’s face was so purely indignant that Dia couldn’t stop herself from laughing.  Zorro huffed his outrage and then trotted back to the bread to retrieve his refused gift.  Suddenly the wolf turned and lunged for the bread.  He grabbed it in this teeth moments before Zorro tried to pick it up. The wolf turned his head back to Zorro and smirked. 

 

Zorro was not having that!  He lunged toward the bread hanging from the wolf’s mouth. Dia gasped.  Surely her little friend was about to die, but … no. The wolf effortlessly twisted his haunches to bodycheck the fox.  Zorro tumbled away, then stood and shook himself.  An expression of absolute determination limned his face.

 

As El Guapo languorously walked away, Zorro launched himself toward the wolf.  The mighty wolf seemed indifferent to all of Zorro’s attempts to retrieve his bread, refusing to even stop walking. 

 

Zorro decided to trip El Guapo by racing in and around his legs, but to no avail.  It was a tango so intricate that a Porteno might envy its artistry. Dia thought it was the prettiest dance she had ever seen.  Finally the wolf gobbled down the bread while the fox barked at him.

The next afternoon when Senor Zorro and Dia found their usual vantage point to view El Guapo, Dia was disturbed to find a small, dead rodent waiting for them.  She started to kick the carcass away with her shoe, but Zorro pounced on it with glee. He grabbed it with his mouth and turned toward the boulder on which a handsome wolf only pretended to be asleep. She had never seen Senor Zorro look so happy.

 

In this way Dia discovered that no all gifts came wrapped with a bow. 

 

Dia observed their romance blossom according to rules no more comprehensible than any other romance.  For days Zorro pretended to stalk the mighty wolf. On his belly he would inch his way toward the resting wolf, but no sooner did Zorro get within pouncing distance then the wolf would bat him away with his mighty paw.  Was that mean?  Dia couldn’t tell.  Zorro yipped his outrage and delight.

 

One day El Guapo concluded the game with an entirely new motion. He brought the full weight of his paw down on Zorro’s back. Zorro whined piteously. The wolf stood and looked down on his trapped prey. Dia couldn’t breathe.  Was this the end for her little fox? 

 

The wolf sniffed the air and then looked down on the fox. Slowly he lowered himself down and curled around Zorro. Finally he removed his paw and replaced it with the warm fur of his tail.  Dia expected him to bolt away in fear, but he did not. He, too, sniffed his friend who must have smelled good.  Zorro rested his head again the wolf’s belly, sighed contentedly, and closed his eyes. Together they rested in the late afternoon sun.

 

Perhaps, wondered Dia, it was time to let them play alone.  When Zorro wasn’t waiting for her at the shrine to Gaucho Gil, she found other paths to explore. The story of Senor Zorro and El Guapo the Wolf became embellished in her mind like the finest fairy tale of childhood. 

 

But not all fairy tales were kind.

 

Dia awoke one night to the terrifying howls of a wolf fight. She could hear the sounds of vicious animal fighting resounding through the hills.  Her mother held her tightly in her arms while her father bolted the doors and windows.  No one in San Roque went outside their home that night.

 

As soon as Dia could escape school the next day, she went searching for Senor Zorro and El Guapo.  The familiar boulders were stained with dried blood and fur. It smelled horrible. It was a place of death.  Dia ran home through the hills in the way the fox had shown her.  But something was different.

 

The door to the garden shed was pushed open. Zorro and Guapo were inside. The wolf whined at her approach, but the fox limped toward her open hands.  They both were bloodied. Guapo had a long, open wound along his flank; Zorro had been bitten as well.  Dia tried her best to clean them and brought them water and bread.  She knew she couldn’t tell her father about them and begged her furry friends to be quiet through the night.

 

They were quiet, too quiet.  The next morning the shed was empty.  They were gone. Dia spent weeks wandering the hills looking for them, but she never saw them again. 

 

Her grief was so great that finally Dia’s mother came to her with pencil and paper and said, “Tell their story. Write it down. Once you write their story, you have them forever.”

 

If only Dia had written her mother’s story, too.

 

Many years later, while taking an undergrad writing class at UC Berkeley, Dia began to find a shape for her mother’s story. They hadn’t moved to Argentina for the sake of her father’s job; they had returned so that her mother could die at home.  Her mother had to show her daughter the world of her blood; the earth in which her mind and spirit had flowered.  All stories had an origin and the mother had wanted her daughter to know hers’ while she was there to tell the tale.

 

Dia’s writing teacher gave her middling marks for the first draft of the story and suggested narrowing her focus. Pick an incident. Make it as real as possible. The universal is found in specifics.

 

Dia took the second to last paragraph and made it the whole story.  Her mother no longer appeared in the story, although it was only about her.

 

Once her mother died, Dia couldn’t think of a reason to speak, so she stopped.  She went inside her head and closed the door; she went to a place the schoolteachers and the local doctor were afraid she’d never leave.  Dia’s father was frantic with worry.  He barely knew his way around words.  His wife, his wonderful wife, gave him all the words he needed, but now he had to live in a world gone silent in the absence of her voice. Now he was sitting in a room with a daughter who might never speak again.

 

Dia’s father didn’t remember making a decision. He remembered bundling his daughter in a blanket and putting her in the back seat of his car. Then they were driving, days of driving. He didn’t try to make her speak nor did he speak himself. By the third day of driving Dia felt weary and angry. 

 

She yelled at her father, “What are you doing? Where are we going?’

 

He hardly looked at her when he replied. “To the end of the world.”

 

Dia thought about this.  “Will Mama be there?”

 

“What do I know?” answered her father. Dia once again went quiet.

 

 

“Ruta 40” said the road signs. From San Roque, in mountains of Northern Argentina near the Bolivian border, to Rio Gallegos at the far end of Patagonia, were endless days of driving.  Dia lost track of time. “So many miles,” she remembered her mother saying, “as long as _Los Estados Unidos_ is wide,” although she had failed to mention that most of it was an unpaved road.  Maybe it didn’t matter. Her silent father needed to drive as if the only peace to be found was in motion.  They stopped in little villages to eat and slept in the car at night. Dia spent her days looking out the window at the animals: llamas, vicunas, nandus, so many herds of sheep, and occasionally a spotted fox.  Dia wondered if they had seen her friend.

 

One morning Dia woke in the backseat of the car alone. After days of driving through the monotony of the plains, they were in the foothills of mountains.  In the far distance was the Torres del Paine.  On the other side of this range was Chile and Dia wondered if her father intended to cross this frontier, too.  But first she had to find him.

 

Not far from where the car was parked, a trial disappeared into the forest.  A shrine to Gaucho Gil marked the entrance and Dia took that as a good sign, so she followed the trail into the forest where she found her father stacking rocks on top of each other, large ones on the bottom, then smaller and smaller as the column grew taller.

  
“What is that?” Dia asked.

 

“I forget the word, but your mother said she wanted this more than any gravestone.”

 

Dia spotted a rock as big as her fist and brought it to her father.  “Is this a good size?” she asked.

 

It was early afternoon before they finished. The column was almost three feet high. Her father has made the base sturdy, but would it be sturdy enough? 

 

Her father shrugged.  “In time we are all dust.”

 

Dia held her arms out and her father lifted her up to his chest. 

 

“I want to go home,” she said.

 

“Me, too,” her father replied. He began carrying her back down the trail.  “Is there anything in San Roque that you can’t live without?”

 

Dia thought for several long moments and then shook her head no.

 

“Okay,” he said.  “We’re going to El Calafate.”

 

“What’s in El Calafate?”

 

“An airport.  We’re going home, Dia.”  She knew he didn’t mean San Roque.

 

 

 

Dia spotted the handsome young man as she crossed Sproul Plaza on her way to the MLK Student Union.  He walked with a bit of a military bearing, which was not something she saw a lot of at Berkeley.  Oops. He saw her looking. He grinned at her.

 

“Please be kind,” he called at her.

 

“What,” she replied?

 

“I want to pretend that a pretty girl was actually looking at me, so if that isn’t true, promise not to tell me how stupid I am?”

 

Dia laughed.  “What if I were looking at you?”

 

His dark blond hair glinted in the light. “Well, kiddo, you’d make my day.”

 

 

 

They sat on the wall outside the student cafeteria and shared sips of an ice coffee milk shake.

 

“Oh my god, that’s sweet,” he said.

 

“I like it, too,” she replied.

 

“Wow, way to see right through me.”

 

“I don’t see through you.  I ask probing questions.  What’s your major?”

 

“Criminal justice.  Want to be a police officer.  When I got out of the Navy, the career counselor told me that a college degree would get me better pay and, since the GI Bill pays for college, here I am.”

 

“FBI?”

 

“No, not for me.  I think I’d like to be a police officer in a small town. Kind of a small town guy to be honest.”

 

“I bet you watched a lot of westerns when you were a kid.”

 

He laughed.  “So many.  Everything by John Ford. Do not say a word against the movies of Mr. John Ford,” he intoned sternly.

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

 

“Good. Okay, my turn. What’s your name?”

 

She smiled.  “Well, I used to be called Dia when I was a girl, but now I go by my actual name.

 

“Which is…?”

 

“Claudia.”

 

He smiled to himself.  “Nice.”

 

“And what’s your name?” 

 

He groaned.  “Yeah, so, Polish family.  My last name is Stilinski and my first name is no better.”

 

“No worries,” replied Claudia. “I’m going to call you ‘Sheriff’ anyway.”

 

“Sheriff, huh? Because of the westerns?”

 

“Yup,” she replied, popping the ‘p.’

 

He thought about this for along moment and then grinned. “I like it.”

 

“You better,” she smiled. “Because for the rest of our lives, I’m never going to call you anything else.”

 

In the years that followed, Claudia spent a lot of time trying to describe the happiness that swept over the Sheriff’s face and the light that suddenly lit up his eyes as he looked at her. The light she recognized the moment she saw it. She even knew its name.

 

Home. 

 

 

When Scott found the note on the windshield of his car, dread ran through his body; reading it only confirmed it.

 

_“If you love me – and my whole life is built on that certainty – let me go. You are my brother.  I love you, but I know you.  You’re going to forgive me and I can’t stand that. You forgiving me is more pain than I can bear. Let me go, Scott. S.”_

 

Scott raced with the note to the Sheriff’s house, but the Sheriff had a note of his own.

 

“He’s already gone, Scott. He must have headed out yesterday.”

 

Scott has never seen the Sheriff look so defeated.

 

“But we have to…”

 

“What,” the Sheriff asked helplessly? “Lock him up?  Handcuff him to the radiator?  Has either of us ever been able to stop Stiles from doing anything? Whatever this is, he has to do it. All we can do hope the he’ll come back.”

 

 

Scott didn’t realize he had made a decision until he was at Derek’s door.  Derek read the note with bitter recognition.

 

“That’s why it has to be you,” said Scott.

 

“What can I do?” Derek asked incredulously.

 

“Go find Stiles.”

 

“Then what,” Derek demanded.

 

 “Give him a reason to live.”

 

Derek’s laugh was ugly.

 

“Shut up,” said Scott.  “Because you figured out how.  You blamed yourself for the murder of your family and still found a way to keep fighting.”

 

Derek looked at Scott dumbfounded. “I…I haven’t found a way.”

 

“Stop.  I don’t have time for a pep talk.  Do this for me. Do this for you. No, fuck that; you could refuse the both of us. Do it for Stiles. Okay?  Do it for Stiles.”

 

Derek was quiet for a long moment. “Where would I even begin?”

 

“When we went to Mexico to rescue you, Stiles said something weird.  He said that for a place he’d never been before, it felt familiar.  I had no idea what that meant, but then I remembered. His mother lived somewhere in South America when she was a girl.  I don’t know, Derek, but if he were looking for something, maybe he’d go there? I think he’s gone south.”

 

“Scott, south is a direction, not a place.”

 

“If you couldn’t go on living, where would you go?”

 

“I’d just …  go until I got to the end.”

 

“Start there.”

 

 

La Ruta del Fin del Mundo.  The Road to the End of the World. “Yeah,” thought Stiles, reading the road sign. “Yeah.  Won’t be long now.”

 

He hoisted the backpack across his shoulders. In the months he’d been traveling across Latin America, he’d learned to throw everything extraneous away. He was now down to a passport, a plastic rain poncho, a bag of nuts and raisins, and a toothbrush. The lack of weight in his backpack felt like freedom. He was skinnier than ever, but his eyes remained kind and people responded to his smile as if it were real. It was enough.

 

 

The bus to Ushuaia was unexpectedly comfortable. Stiles laughed to himself. One of his last thoughts in this world would be gratitude for the excellence of the shock systems on Argentine buses. As the bus descended the Martial Mountains, Stiles could see the harbor and the boats leaving for Antarctica. 

 

“This is it,” he thought. 

 

At the depot, he felt glad to have his legs under him again. He had planned to wander around the city for maybe half a day, but his feet led his to a bar nearest the depot. Inside it was dark and dim and perfect, including the handsome stranger sipping a beer. 

 

Only the stranger wasn’t a stranger.

 

“Derek?” Stiles asked.

 

Derek saluted him by raising his bottle.

 

“What are you doing here?”

 

“Waiting,” Derek replied.

 

Stiles thought for a long moment, sighed, and then smiled. “You can’t stop me.”

 

“Not here to try,” Derek shrugged.

 

“Then why are you here, old friend?”

 

“You in a hurry?” Derek asked.

 

Stiles thought, then shrugged.

 

“Thought maybe I could show you something.”

 

Stiles considered this.  “No funny stuff.”

 

“Way to kill my stand-up comedy ambitions,” Derek deadpanned.

 

Stiles laughed and made a realization. “I’m … happy to see you. Huh.”

 

Derek almost smiled in return and then drained his beer. “I’ve got a motorcycle. You’re going to sit behind me and hold on tight.  It’ll be a dream come true.”

 

“For which one us?” Stiles inquired.

 

When Derek didn’t respond, Stiles shrugged. “It’s way too late for me to pretend. I will fucking love putting my arms around you and holding on tight.  I am totally going to grind up against all your stupid beauty, especially your ass.”

 

Derek shrugged, which made Stiles laugh again.

 

“Amazing the things you can get when you no longer care.”

 

 

By day four they had crossed over the mountains into Chile.  Derek stopped on the peninsula outside Punta Arenas.  “Look,” he pointed.  “That’s the Atlantic on one side and the Pacific on the other.”

 

They got off the bike and hiked along the ridge for a while.  “This is what you wanted to show me?” Stiles asked.

 

“No,” mumbled Derek.

 

“It’s water, Derek, so much water. But…thanks.”

 

When they got back to the bike, Stiles began to pull his backpack free from the bungee cords.  “Time for you to head home.”  Stiles gave Derek the smile he’d always wanted to give him, huge, openhearted, from a world before consequence.

 

“Bye, baby. Thank you.”

 

“Shut up,” Derek replied darkly. “We’re not there yet. Get back on the bike.” Derek pulled his helmet back on this head.

 

“Derek… I’m not going to ride around with you forever.”

 

“Two more nights, okay?  Two nights.  I want to show you the Torres del Paine.”

“Towers of Pain?  Seriously?” Stiles asked.

 

“That’s not what Paine means. Paine is a kind of blue, glacier blue, a kind of turquoise.  You have to see the lakes.”

 

“Thanks, pal, but I’ve seen lakes. It’s time for me to go. But with whatever is left of my heart, know this.  I love you.  This world and the next, I … love you. I wish that was worth more.”

 

For a few moments Stiles breathed shallowly through his mouth.  “Gotta go now.”

 

Stiles turned away from Derek and started walking.

 

“You killed her,” said Derek.

 

Stiles stopped, but didn’t look back.

 

“I heard all the excuses.  It wasn’t really you. You’re not responsible for Alison Argent’s death. It was the Nogitsune that possessed you.  But we both know that’s bullshit. Evil picked you because you made such a good home.”

 

For maybe the first time in his life, Stiles didn’t argue.

 

“You killed Alison Argent.”  Derek lifted his leg and straggled the motorcycle. “Now get on the bike.”

 

 

An eco-hostel rented yurts in the foothills of the Torres. When Derek picked the one that was farthest from the others, the woman running the camp clucked her tongue. “ _La cabana de luna de miel._ ” The honeymoon cottage. Derek shrugged. “I should warn you,” she said. “Not so romantic when it’s night and you are a long way from the toilets.” 

 

“Least of my worries,” replied Derek.

 

 

They slept for a long time.  It was dark when Derek awoke.  Stiles was no longer in bed, but Derek could hear his heartbeat just outside the tent.   When he stepped outside, Derek found Stiles staring off into the distance with something like a smile glancing his face.

 

“What?” Derek asked.

 

“Cheap radios are perfect.”

 

Derek could hear it now, a ridiculous old song. Stiles sang along.

 

_“I wish I was in Tijuana, eating barbecued iguana._

_I hear the voice of the dj, no comprende, what does he say?_

_I want a Mexican radio. Woo-woo_ ,”

_I want a Mexican, woo-woo, radio.”_

 

“You’re ridiculous,” Derek smiled.

 

“You love me,” replied Stiles. To which Derek said nothing in the most meaningful way.

 

“We should probably fuck now -- and you know what would be fantastic?  If we didn’t do it nice. A little late for romance, right? Down and dirty. Let’s keep it real.” Stiles stretched, his shirt lifting over his prominent hipbones, and reentered the yurt.

 

Derek didn’t follow him immediately. For a while he sat watching the distant campfires grow brighter against the deepening night, but finally he stood and went inside.  Stiles lay shirtless, splayed across the low camp bed.  He should have been shivering in the cool air, but he lay still and stared through the canvas ceiling toward … some place else. His tether to this world was so thin a word might break it.

 

Derek couldn’t be sure Stiles had heard him enter, which gave him a private moment to consider Stiles’ body. He was rail thin and his musculature wasn’t so much cut as etched. He no longer had the body of a gangly boy. The boy was gone. In the dim light he looked carved like a piece of scrimshaw. He was ivory whittled meticulously into the shape of a man, all bone and long lines.  Derek thought nothing so ruined should be so beautiful.

 

“What – what is that?” grunted Derek.

 

Stiles startled.  “What?”

 

Derek grabbed a flashlight and shone it directly on the taut skin over Stiles’ ribs.  The light revealed a tattoo of a face of a woman, her long, dark hair a contrast to the death skull of her face.

 

“ _La Lloranda_ , the crying woman.  Got that in Mexico. My mom used to tell me stories about her.  She made a deal with death.  Death got the better deal.”

 

Derek put his nose against Stiles’ skin. “Stiles, it’s infected.”

 

“Well,” shrugged Stiles’, “when you’re trading blow jobs for ink, what can you expect?”

 

Derek slapped Stiles.  His reaction was so instantaneous that the realization of what he’d done didn’t hit Derek until a moment later.  He shoved himself away from Stiles so hard that he found himself sprawled on the floor. Derek gasped at what he’d done.

 

“Hey, relax,” said Stiles.  “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.” Derek watched the leer spread across Stiles’ face.  He turned away from Stiles and curled into himself on the floor.  Stiles watched him for a minute.

 

“Yeah, so maybe this wasn’t the best idea. No worries, okay?” Stiles grabbed his jacket. “Think I’ll go for a walk around camp. Don’t wait up.”

 

 

Derek didn’t count the hours Stiles was gone. After a while he pulled himself up from the floor and sat on the side of the bed.  A while later he went to his motorcycle and pulled a leather-wrapped package out of the saddlebag.  He placed the package on the end of the bed and then sat beside it, unmoving, until Stiles returned.

 

“So,” said Stiles, “let’s not make this a thing, but I’m going.”

 

“Okay,” Derek replied.

 

If Stiles was surprised, he tried not to show it. He lifted his backpack before he noticed the package on the bed next to Derek.

 

“What is that?”

 

“For you,” said Derek, then, “No. For me first, then you.” His words had no intonation at all.

 

Stiles picked up the package. “Heavy.”  He began to pull the leather tie holding the package together when Derek reached out and stopped him.

 

“Not here.”

 

“Ooookay,” Stiles replied.  “Where then? Coffee shop at the mall?  We’re in the middle of nowhere, Derek.”

 

Derek stood from the bed and grabbed his leather coat. “Down the road.” He turned to look at Stiles. “Bring your backpack. We’ll part from there.”

 

 

Derek brought the motorcycle to a stop on a ridge road overlooking Lago Sarmiento. They dismounted.  After a moment Derek started walking and Stiles followed. They didn’t walk more than a few hundred feet when Derek abruptly stopped. 

 

“Good a place as any,” he said to Stiles. “Open it.”

 

Before the leather cloth fell open, Stiles knew. The weight was specific. He lifted the gun into the morning sky and watched the light glint across the barrel. 

 

“Trying to make things easier for me?” Stiles wondered out loud.

 

“Not for you.  For me.”

 

Derek lifted the pistol out of Stiles’ hands, slid the chamber open, and placed one bullet in the chamber. It was a special bullet with a special smell.

 

“Wolfsbane,” Stiles whispered.

 

Derek placed the pistol back in Stiles’ hand and then knelt in the dirt before him. 

 

“The heart, I think.  Through the heart would be fastest.”

 

For a moment Stiles didn’t react. “Where’d you get this?” Stiles asked coolly.

 

“A woman I used to know.  Said she was a U.S. Marshall.”

 

Stiles couldn’t prevent the ugly laugh that fell out of him.  “Yeah, Derek, gotta say, you’ve always had shit taste in women.”

 

Derek thought for a long moment. “Can’t see that ever changing – unless a friend helps me make it stop.”

 

Stiles spit on the ground.

 

“Sucks to be you, Derek.  Because NO.  No, I’m not going to put a bullet through your heart.”

 

Stiles speech became ragged.  “You track me to the end of the earth and then ask me to kill you? What the actual fuck, Derek? Did you think this was going to help me – or did you think, oh I don’t know; let’s hurt Stiles more? Because he’s not hurting enough. Let’s hurt Stiles MORE.” His voice had edged into shrill.

 

“They thought I could save you. I can’t save anyone.”

 

Derek lifted his face to meet Stiles’. Pain lacerated his eyes.

 

“I killed my family.  I killed Paige. Erica. Boyd. We both know people fall over themselves saying it wasn’t our fault.  ‘You couldn’t have known, you’re not responsible’ -- and I can’t listen to that lie ever again.”

 

Stiles staggered a step away from Derek.

 

“Let’s me say the truth to you. I’m bad and I deserve to die.” Derek laughed harshly. “Oh, god. It feels so good to say it. I’m bad. I want to die.”

 

On his knees, Derek crawled closer to Stiles. “Maybe a good person could have made you live, but that’s not what I am.  All these months of searching for you and I kept thinking that at the end I’d know what to do.”  He laughed again. “I’ve got nothing.”

 

Derek dragged himself to his feet. “At the end I’m the one asking you for mercy.  I can’t stop you from destroying yourself, so please, Stiles, spare me the pain of being in this world without you.  You said you loved me. Please, Stiles, please let me go first.”

 

Gently Derek took the barrel of the gun and pressed it to his heart. 

 

“Now.”

 

The scream that tore out of Stiles made the rest of the world go mute.  He shoved his face into Derek’s face and screamed and screamed until his throat was in shreds. Derek pressed his face back into Stiles crying so hard he couldn’t open his eyes to see.

 

The bullet Stiles fired into the sky seemed to tear it open.  Stiles fell into Derek and held on like a falling man in sight of the ground.

 

“I hate you so much,” Stiles sobbed into his shoulder.

 

Derek pressed his lips against Stiles’ forehead and kissed him and kissed him and kissed him.  “I hate you more.”

 

 

For the next week they only left the yurt to pee in the scrub brush and make food runs to the tiny bodega, proving it was possible to live on protein bars and Gatorade. Mostly they lay in bed, touching each other or not touching each just long enough to make rediscovery possible.

 

“It’s like frostbite,” mumbled Stiles into Derek’s neck. Derek didn’t have to ask.  He knew. It hurt worse when you started to feel.

 

One morning Stiles got dressed. Derek watched him, afraid to ask.

 

“Something I’ve got to do,” Stiles said. He took the keys for the bike and exited the yurt.  After a moment he came back in.  “No,” he said, shaking his head, trying for clarity.  “You’re supposed to come with me.”

 

Derek released the breath he didn’t know he was holding.

 

“Look, while my brain’s rebooting, could we just understand that when I say I, I mean we?

 

Derek’s face cracked into a smile before he could stop it.  “Sure,” he shrugged, I mean yes.” Derek grabbed for his coat.  “What are we doing?”

 

“I don’t know,” Stiles replied solemnly.

 

 

Stiles drove to the approximate spot in the hills above the lago where they had been a few days and a world ago. The water reflected flat silver against the light.  Derek sat near the bike and watched Stiles as he paced back and forth.  He didn’t say a word.  Not that it mattered.  Stiles spirit was traveling.

 

Then Stiles stopped, looked around, and began gathering rocks.  The gathering became frantic. Stiles heaped the rocks into a pile and then heaped more rocks on top of that pile, but they slipped and rolled away. Frustration and incomprehension etched his face. He looked up at Derek.

 

“Help me.”

 

He knew.  Derek knew.  A moment before he didn’t, then this second arrived and he knew.

 

“Big rocks on the bottom.  Fill in with smaller pebbles, then layer after layer.”

 

Stiles wasn’t sure what Derek meant. It was easier to show him. By the time the column of rock got waist high, Stiles gasped.

 

“That’s it! That’s it.  Don’t stop.  What’s it called?”

 

“An apacheta,” said Derek.

 

“Yes!!!” Stiles exalted.  “It was in a story my mother told me.  Apacheta.  Oh, god, yes. It was like hearing my grandmother speak through her.  What does it mean? Do you know?”

 

“Not sure,” Derek shrugged.  “I think it was an Incan thing, a kind of shrine. My dad knew all this stuff.” For a moment Derek went quiet, but continued in a tighter voice. “He said sometimes people built them for atonement for sins, sometimes in gratitude to Mother Earth, sometimes for luck and protection by travelers.”

 

Stiles, standing across the apacheta from Derek, reached out his hands blindly.  Derek grabbed them.

 

“Allison,” Stiles sobbed.  “Allison.”  Sobs ripped through him.

 

Then it was Derek’s turn Through short, ragged breaths, Derek named everyone he’d lost in the fire, then wept. Two men stood over a pile of rocks, holding hands, and cried like lost boys who’d never see their mothers again.

 

In the water of their tears the apacheta was baptized. In the water of their tears stones became sacred.

 

 

Derek checked the bungee cords and the saddle clasps lashing their few belongings to the motorcycle. 

 

“So,” Derek asked, “where to?”

 

“Not home,” Stiles said, “not yet, not ready.”

 

“Okay, but maybe we could make a couple of phone calls?” Derek asked.

 

“Definitely,” Stiles replied. “I can do that. Where do you want to be?”

 

“With you,” Derek said simply.

 

Stiles’ smile nearly split his face. “Oh, baby,” he whispered. As a statement of eternal agreement, it was simple but entirely effective.

 

Derek’s heart hurt with happiness, which made it hard to look Stiles in the face.  Stiles decided to make matters worse by wiggling his eyebrows.

 

“Stop,” laughed Derek.  “We still need a direction.”

 

Stiles went inside himself and came back with an answer.

 

“Isaac,” he said.

 

It took a moment for Derek to remember how to breathe. He nodded once. 

 

“Isaac,” Derek agreed.

 

Derek climbed on the bike and started the engine. Stiles scooted in tightly behind him.

 

“I foresee five thousand miles of grinding action. Think you can handle that, wolf man?”

 

“Pfffft,” Derek replied.

 

“A challenge,” Stiles smiled. “I like that. 

 

“Oh,” Derek asked, “Did you think you were always riding in the back?  We’re switching off, pal. We’ll see who’s king of the grinders.”

 

Stiles laughter resonated in Derek’s entire body.

 

“You know rumor has it that Isaac moved to France.”

 

Derek shrugged.

 

“How are we going to ride this bike across the ocean?”

 

Derek throttled the engine.

 

“You and me, Stiles.”

 

Derek released the throttle, carefully maneuvered across the ditch, and then slowly headed for the open road.

 

“We’ll think of something.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
